Ziyarah in Madinah

Madinah, which lies 447 kilometers north of the Holy City of Makkah, is the second holiest city inIslam. It was to Madinah that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his followers, faced by the hostility and persecution of the Makkhan merchants, departed in 622 AD – and, when the citizens of Madinah asked the Prophet to live amongst them and to arbitrate in their affairs (an invitation taken to mean their rejection of polytheism and submission to the will of the one God, Allah), it was in Madinah that the Islamic era began.